Big Trish

Taboo, you say? Taboo she is.
     I visited my oldest friend today. Oldest as in we've been friends for 15 years, not as in she's old. (Although she has the lungs and emotional wounds of a 70 year old). She comes from a very white picket fence family; all blonde hair, blue eyes, college graduates. White picket fence with one hell of a snag. A very loveable snag, but a snag none the less. (As she put it, she's the only thing standing between her parents and Arizona. Arizona WAS their retirement plan. Until she refused to budge. Approaching 30 and simply "enjoying the luxuries. This place  is like a freakin spa, man!" ) She too has blonde hair and blue eyes, but her while her sisters' hair is calm and appropriate, hers is a fashion haven of highlights and stylish snarls.  Although unemployed, packages never cease arriving, and her credit cards are on her list of my rudely invasive conversation-starters. But that's just her on paper. The reasons she has wormed her way into my family as a surrogate sister are endless.

I know she's struggling when her hair looks like this.

Last winter, for example, we had a (young, good looking, professional, newly married) man over from another country.  Trish settled herself next to him at the dinner table, casting sidelong glances as she swirled her wine. At everything he said she would emit an enormous cackle (obviously sounding to her like a throaty trill) and repeat to the rest of the dinner table like she was with a deaf, dumb audience. (My poor mother. Sort of. My mother is oddly comfortable in these situations. Red flag comfortable.) By the end of the dinner, she was leaning towards him with both elbows on the table asking him questions she already knew the answer to and swaying towards the wall behind him. As he uneasily shied away from her, she focused her attentions on another male at the table, a family friend she has known for years who after a few glasses of wine was suddenly very attractive. She seemed to register his obvious discomfort for she soon excused herself for a "shmoke." When she returned, it was to a room full of friends- back to square one. All part of her charm.

And I know she's movin' on up when it looks like this.

     And charming she is. When she's not in a land of sadness and woe, she is the perfect companion. She speaks in a deep baritone with hard S's on command. Interior designer extraordinaire, she transforms bare walls to magnificent cranberry and chocolate brown hues, all in a minute's time. She buys new Uggs every winter. And gives me her old ones. She clomps up my stairs with a Starbucks for each of us. (Ned does not like clomping. Or deep baritones. Or Starbucks for that matter.) She treats me to sushi. I can tell her emotional status by her hair. And if she's lying by her mouth. (It won't close all the way when she's lying. Every time.) She smokes so much that sometimes when she sit back old smoke drifts out her nostrils. She is loyal to a fault. "Big Trish don't let go" she cried today, shaking her head at all the men who have wronged her, "Big Trish just can't let go." Men don't find Trish quite as....easygoing as I do. Or hysterical. But Trish is the diamond in the rough. And she loves diamonds. From men. As tough as they may be to wangle out, she has emerged the triumphant victor in a few of her many escapades.
She also taught me how to shop. (Another Ned no-no). And return. And return. And return. A few times, I was reeled into her wheeling and dealing. She would practically push me out of the car with an Old Navy bag of cigarette smelling clothes with no tags on them, and manipulate (I don't use that word lightly) me into exchanging them for store credit. The fact that her son was nearly impaled on a coat rack there was enough for her to suppress any natural guilt at ripping off Old Navy. And the fact that her store credit was often used for my own kids was enough to suppress my own natural guilt. So we returned to our heart's delight.
In fact, everything I do with her is to my heart's delight. She is glorious in every sense of the word. From her figure to her vocabulary, from her wardrobe to her hair, Big Trish is a character in the novel of my life that is no less than magnificent. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥